Originally a cabinetmaker, Bramah became interested in the problem of devising a pick-proof lock. In 1784 he exhibited his new lock in his shop window, with a sign offering a reward of 200 guineas to anyone who could pick it. Despite many attempts, the Bramah lock defied all efforts for 67 years, until it was finally opened by a mechanic after 51 hours’ work. The success of the lock was won at the price of complexity, and it could be produced in quantity only after the creation of a whole set of well-designed and precisely engineered machine tools. To assist in making them, he hired a young blacksmith, Henry Maudslay, who proved to be an engineering genius. The prototype machines designed and built by Bramah and Maudslay went far toward founding the machine-tool industry, the basis of the vast expansion of British manufacturing in the 19th century.

Of Bramah’s other inventions the most notable is his hydraulic press; he also invented an improved water closet, a wood-planing machine, and a machine for numbering bank notes.

...century; sewage-treatment plants were introduced in the 1860s. Permanent plumbing fixtures appeared in buildings with water supply and drainage, replacing portable basins, buckets, and chamber pots. Joseph Bramah invented the metal valve-type water closet as early as 1778, and other early lavatories, sinks, and bathtubs were of metal also; lead, copper, and zinc were all tried. The metal...

In 1784 (between Barron’s lock and Chubb’s improvements on it) a remarkable lock was patented in England by Joseph Bramah. Working on an entirely different principle, it used a very small light key, yet gave an unprecedented amount of security. Bramah’s locks are very intricate (hence, expensive to make), and for their manufacture Bramah and his young assistant Henry Maudslay (later to become a...